The Wallabies still need Will Genia

Warren Gatland is sitting at the selection table with his Lions assistants working through which players will make the cut for the 2013 tour to Australia.

At loose-head prop Cian Healy and Gethin Jenkins are the unaminous picks, and Mako Vunipola is the "point of the difference" player off the bench. But there is a problem. Jenkins wants to play in the European Cup final for his French side and might not make the trip. A fourth name is required.

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That little scene, from the Lions Raw documentary, says so much about how selections are still judgment calls, despite the huge volume of performance data that is available to coaches, and what a profound impact it can make.

Australia coach Ewen McKenzie has made a few of his own for the first Test against the French on Saturday, notably in picking an inexperienced No.9 and No.10.

The justifications for doing so are staring us in the face. Nic White is a great little player, the type of No.9 the French will recognise well – excellent at working with his pack and a dominant player in the Brumbies game plan. Although Matt Toomua is a fine player, the Brumbies are at their best when White is playing well, hitting those big forwards rolling around the corner and pinning teams back with his long kicking game.

Similarly, Bernard Foley's form has been close to irresistible over recent weeks. Indeed, ever since Andrew Mehrtens volunteered Foley's name as the Wallabies No.10 the Waratahs five-eighth has made an ass of anyone who thought the irascible Mehrtens was stirring the pot. His goalkicking is excellent, he holds up defences with his running threat, and his restarts to Israel Folau have become a feature of the Waratahs season and will no doubt feature at Suncorp Stadium.

So why is there a small, nagging voice of doubt about this team, of the sort that insists you have left the keys in the door? It's Will Genia's absence.

First, because of the experience he brings, and second, because he has in the past shown the ability to play to a level that neither White nor Nick Phipps possess. By not playing him Australia are deprived of an opportunity for him to reclaim that sort of form.

Even if White and Phipps play well, and White has been over enough hurdles to make you think he will be fine, the Wallabies will still be in deficit compared with where they were when Genia was humming. And it's not ancient history when we talk about Genia, either. Up until that second Test against the Lions, if he was not regarded as the best No.9 in the world then he was certainly in the conversation.

Genia's form has been up and down this year, but it is hardly catastrophic. It could be, and last week's performance against All Blacks No.9 Aaron Smith last week gives credence to the argument, that Genia is at the point now where it's only the big stage, the big challenges, that really get the fire burning. His ground coverage against the Highlanders was excellent – he even hunted down his opposite in the second half as he tried to make a break outside him.

The loss of his 55 caps is also a factor. White and Toomua are still pretty inexperienced – it might get a little lonely at times for Foley if the French get a foothold.

That's a big if. Looking at the side that the French have rolled out, Philippe Saint-Andre, who leans towards fatalism in some of his remarks, might be keeping a bit ot powder dry for the second and third Tests. The Wallabies are good enough to win this Test and the depth they are building in doing so is to be applauded. But it is hard to imagine the Wallabies achieving their longer-term goal of being the No.1 side in the world if Genia is not part of it.